Adapted from the short story:
DANCING WITH IRENE
By Marcia R. Hooper

It was Saturday, December 11, 2004. I had not seen Aaron in five years. Six years, once I stopped to think about it. I was at the Home Depot at Crystal Rock Center, looking for a replacement thermostat; I ran into Aaron at the end of an isle. It took a moment to convince myself that Yes, it really was Aaron, and then I almost walked away.

“Hello, Aaron,” I said, nudging him gently. “How you doing?”

He looked just as surprised to see me, and just as put off. “Hey man!” he greeted loudly. “What’s happening?” He had a toilet repair kit in his hand.

I shrugged. “Same old.” I looked around for Irene. “You alone?”

Aaron nodded. “She’s out with her mother, shopping. Like that isn’t news, right?”

We both laughed. Aaron hated the woman.

“So,” I said. “Life treating you good?”

He held up the replacement float. “Just like this, man. How’s Dee?”

Dee is my ex-wife. Irene had worked with her for many years and that’s how I knew Aaron. I once had a thing for his wife.

Irene was not a beautiful woman, not by any stretch of the imagination. Glancing at Irene, most guys would not look back. She was of European descent--Greek, I assumed--with dark brown hair, very dark eyes, an olive complexion and features just a bit too full. She was also a bit too full around the middle (at least, the last time I saw her), with a habit of fuming whenever Aaron pulled his shit. She hailed from Brooklyn, had a strong Brooklyn accent.

All of which did nothing to explain her appeal to me.

“Still racing?” I asked. Aaron owned thoroughbreds and stabled them at Peninsula Racing Center in Ocala. We used to go down on Friday nights, occasionally with the girls, mostly just him and me. He owned five horses now, he said.

“Any of them winners?” I asked.

He just laughed. Then he asked if I wanted to go along with him to Peninsula next Friday night.

I should have said no. Later, I would fervently wish that I had said no. But I wanted to see Irene and I said yes.

Aaron and Irene lived in Yulee, 30 miles north of me up I-95.

Their house was a two-story, vinyl-sided affair, on a nice-sized lot, in a court. Irene had laid out a pair of flowerbeds beneath the front windows, and more along the front walk: pansies, mums and impatiens. In the side yard Aaron built a Home Depot shed and out back, a Home Depot swing set and sandbox. They had two children, Hanna and Gia.

I rang the front doorbell. My stomach roiled. When Aaron answered the door, the best I could manage was, “Hey, man. I’m here.”

“Bring plenty of money?” he wanted to know.

“I brought my wallet,” I said, looking beyond him, wanting to see Irene.

“It better be full,” he advised, grinning.

Betting, especially with Aaron, could be disastrous. I had left my credit cards home.

I waited in the living room while Aaron put on his shoes. Most of the furniture was new from the last time I’d been there. The dining room suite--where I had once kissed Irene during a drunken game of Truth or Dare--was the same, and so was the recliner in one corner. Everything else was new.

“Where’s Irene?” I asked evenly.

He blinked, as though unsure whom I meant. “Upstairs,” he said finally, before yelling her name at full volume.

“Don’t do that, for Christ’s sake,” I hissed. “What’s the matter with you?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“She doesn’t have to come downstairs, Aaron. Not for me.”

But I wanted to see her. I wanted to see her more than I should want to.

After a moment, I heard her footfalls on the floor above--not light and happy footfalls, but the clump-thump footfalls of anger, I thought to myself: Son of a bitch. Why did I come here tonight?

Irene appeared on the stairs. She wore a cream-colored sleeveless top over blue jean shorts. She wore New Balance sneakers with white anklets. She had lost weight, and looked good. She wore her hair long, loose across her shoulders. She advanced slowly from the stairs to Aaron’s side.

“Hi,” she said woodenly.

“Hello, Irene,” I answered back.

She made no effort to come forward to shake my hand, hug me, or do anything else. She just stood beside her husband, holding a child’s school book in her hand. She had a few gray strands in her hair. Barely noticeable lines fanned out from the corners of her eyes and her mouth. I noted her wedding rings, the rings on her right hand, the pair of tiny stud earrings in her lobes, the color of polish on her fingernails. Like a camera, I recorded it all.

“When will you be home?” she asked.

“When I get back,” Aaron answered.

“I need to get the carpets cleaned,” she said. “Win us something for a change.” The carpet I stood on looked absolutely spotless. “Don’t loose all of Dave’s money, either, please. I’m sure he’s tired of having his wallet emptied every time he goes out with you, Aaron.”

Aaron laughed. “I’ll see what I can do about that. Any particular amount you’re looking to win?”

She smiled crookedly. “Surprise me,” she said. And with that, she turned around and went back upstairs.

We headed south on Route 301. After a while, I asked, “So, who you been coming down with lately? Jonathan?” Jonathan was Aaron’s long-suffering co-worker. Sometimes he’d accompanied us to the track.

“No, Jonathan moved back to Brooklyn. You didn’t know? Anyway, lately, I’ve been going down with my neighbor, Tom.” He shrugged. Tom and I didn’t get along.

“Any winners in the stable?” Aaron had terrible luck claiming horses.

He looked disgusted. “I lost so much money last year I actually made money on my taxes. I damned near got rid of the lot of them, Dave. Miserable bastards.”

“She go down with you much?” I asked.

“Irene?” He laughed. “Not once in the last three years.” He gave me a querulous look. “Not that I mind, you know?”

I knew. “Still after the girls?”

He laughed.

I passed a lumbering eighteen-wheeler going up a hill. “That girl at your office ... Molly? You ever make a go with her?”

His grin turned sheepish. “That was a long time ago, Kemosabe. She ended up quitting, anyway, and it wasn’t over me. Her husband found out about her and the boss.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I thought he’d come after me because he caught me flirting with Molly at the Christmas party that year. Not a nice guy at all. I miss Molly, though, believe me.”

Same old Aaron, I thought. “What about Irene? She ever catch on?”

He gave me that querying look again.

“What?” I asked. “Did I miss something?”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“About Irene.”

I was suddenly very wary. “What about Irene?”

“Dee never told you?”

“Never told me what?” I demanded.

“That Irene and I are swingers.”

It was some time before I spoke. “What are you talking about, Aaron?” I slipped the car around another big rig.

Aaron laughed. “I can’t believe you don’t know, David.”

“Enlighten me,” I said.

For once, he wasn’t flippant. “Before you and Dee broke up--shit, I’d say for a good two years before you and Dee broke up--I had Irene screwing other men.”

I said nothing.

“It started out with another woman, actually. Then another woman after that. Then the first woman again and I got to watch. After that, well, she only let me set her up with men, and always in a motel room or alone at our house.” He grinned, though not happily. “She made me stay away until after they’d left. Then we’d have sex and I’d screw her ass silly, you know?”

“Jesus, Aaron,” I muttered, shaken.

He eyed me soberly. “She did Tom, our old neighbor, two guys from my work, and a guy or two from her own work. She even took two guys at once, Dave.”

“Aaron,” I said, pained.

“Believe me, man,” he said. “She’s no angel.”

He had no idea how close he came to getting punched just then. “Why are you telling me this?” I demanded. “Now?”

“Thought you’d like to know. What you missed out on.”

He almost got punched again. “For Christ’s sakes, Aaron. I thought you and Irene were...”

“Happily married?”

A fire engine and an ambulance with lights awhirl and sirens wailing approached from the opposite direction. I slowed and drifted onto the shoulder.

“We were never that happy, Dave. You know that.”

“Yeah, Aaron, but ... swinging?”

“Actually,” he said. “The swinging part was hers. I stayed away, and then did her good and hard afterwards. That was my part.”

I ground my teeth and drove on.

“Don’t be so judgmental,” he said after a while. “At least we’re still married.”

I said, “Newsflash, Aaron! All the swinging in the world wouldn’t have saved Dee and I. And why just Irene? Why not you too?”

He shrugged. “That’s just how it happened. I would have liked having her in a threesome, you know, maybe a foursome--”

“You are so fucking perverted,” I cut in, unable not to laugh.

He laughed back. “Things needed shaking up. She didn’t like sex anymore and didn’t even like to kiss. You could forget getting a blowjob from the woman. Getting her swinging changed all that. Besides, it’s been years now, anyway. The kids got too old and we stopped.”

“Thank God for that,” I muttered. “And if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ve heard enough for tonight.”

“OK. Just so you know, though, she said no.”

I shook my head. “No to what?”

“What do you think?”

I honestly had no idea. Then I did.

“Don’t say another word!” I growled. “You son-of-a-bitch. I’m turning this car around right now!”

“You don’t understand,” he said, laughing.

“I don’t want to understand!” I exploded.

“I think you do.”

“Fuck what you think, Aaron! Keep your fucking mouth shut!”

He said simply, “She said no, because she likes you so much.”

I had lost $40. Aaron had won $285. His horse was running next.

“Do I bet him?” I asked.

“I’m betting to win, but that’s your call, dude.”

I put down twenty dollars to place. What could I lose? So far, I hadn’t let him say anything more about Irene. Now I did. “Tell me what you meant in the car.”

He stared at the board, reviewing the odds. “Well, she never came right out and said it, but I always knew. Remember the night you kissed her? Truth or Dare?” I shrugged. “She was like, in heaven the rest of the night, man.”

“She didn’t seem that way to me.” What I remembered was warm breath, soft lips and a so-what attitude afterwards. Dee cared more about the kiss than Irene did. So I thought.

Aaron shook his head. “You’re the only guy I ever tried to set her up with that she said no to. What’s that tell you?”

“That she dislikes me?” I suggested.

He burst out laughing. “You are so dumb! You are so absolutely fucking dumb, David.”

I had heard enough. I told him so. And for the rest of the evening, although he occasionally flashed me an inquisitive grin, he never broached the subject again. Until we got back.

He said: “I’ll prove what I was saying.”

“Aaron...”

“She never waits up. Never waits up. Want to bet she’s waiting up tonight?” He nodded toward the house. Lights were on downstairs, and in one of the windows upstairs.

“What’s that prove?” I pulled into his driveway.

“That she’s not waiting up for me. Want to make a bet?”

“I lost enough money already tonight, already,” I said.

“Double or nothing?”

“Godammit, Aaron,” I said. “No!”

A shadow crossed the downstairs window nearest the door; a blind tipped up.

“That means nothing,” I said.

Aaron only grinned. “Coming in?”

“Not on your life, Aaron.”

“She’ll be disappointed, Dave.”

“Fuck you, Aaron,” I said. Leaning over, I opened the passenger-side door and told him: “Out. Now. Get out.”

“Okay,” he sighed, unhooking his seatbelt. “But you’re making a mistake, Dave. I’m telling you, buddy.”

“The only mistake I made,” I said, angrily, “was stopping to say hello at the store. Now, will you please get the fuck out of my car?”

He got out, shut the door and stood back. He wore that same inquisitive grin. I gave him the finger, though I too was grinning now, and backed out of the driveway. As I drove away I felt, rather than saw, Irene’s eyes watching me through the blinds.

Monday afternoon, I sat at my desk, eating lunch. I tried not to think of Irene, just as I’d tried not to think of her all weekend. Then the telephone rang.

“Hey, man,” Aaron said.

My heart skipped a beat. I winced. “What do you want, Aaron?”

“Remember our little conversation of the other night?”

“Forget it, Aaron.”

“Well, I gave her a choice. Either she sleeps with you, or she sleeps with somebody else. Either way, she needs a good screwing and she’s going to get it.”

I bolted upright in the chair. “You know, I’ve had as much of you as I can take, Aaron. One more word and I’m coming over there and break your fucking face.”

“Dave!” he said, laughing. “Do you want Irene or not?”

I wanted to strangle him. I wanted to strangle the phone. “Look,” I said, once I’d calmed down. “Leave me alone, Aaron. Don’t call me any more, don’t e-mail me, don’t--”

Matter-of-factly, he said: “It’s either you or somebody else, Dave. You really want Irene to screw someone else?”

I hung up the phone. He called back.

“Man, what is the matter with you? I’m offering you Irene, who I know you are crazy over, and you say no?” He went silent and I heard voices in the background. When they were gone, he continued. “I’ve made up my mind, Dave. Either she hooks up with you, with someone, or our marriage is over.”

“Then it needs to be over!” I yelled. “Have you ever considered a marriage counselor, Aaron? They invented counseling just for people like you. The poster-boy for Schizophrenics Anonymous!”

I banged the phone on the hook and then removed it again and laid it on the desk. I silenced my cell phone, put on my jacket and left. I rode around for a time, seething with anger and indigestion, and then pulled over at an inviting neon sign. I got drunk.

The next day, Irene called me herself.